Stephen Dorff Talks IMMORTALS and His New Film BRAKE Which He Calls ‘DIE HARD in the Trunk of a Car’

With director Tarsem Singh’s new film Immortals opening this weekend, Collider has been overrun with exclusive interviews with the filmmakers and cast over the past few days. For those not familiar with Immortals (watch the trailer and clips), the film centers on Theseus (Henry Cavill), a mortal who teams up with the Greek gods in order to defeat the power-hungry King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke). The film also stars Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, Isabel Lucas, Joseph Morgan, Kellan Lutz, and Stephen Dorff.

The other day I sat down with Stephen Dorff for an extended interview. During our wide ranging conversation, we discussed how he got involved in Immortals, the practical sets and extravagant costumes, his research and preparation, the last video game he played, his go-to karaoke song, and what people always want to talk about when they spot him in a Starbucks. In addition, he revealed a lot of information about an upcoming film called Brake that he filmed over 11 days. He called it a “one man show” and described it as, “Die Hard in the trunk of a car.” Hit the jump for more.

Stephen Dorff time index

:12 Talks about his go-to karaoke song.

:35 What’s the last video game he played? Talks about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

1:19 What’s the thing people always want to talk to him about if they run into him in a Starbucks? Says he gets a lot of Blade, Somewhere, and Felon.

2:48 Talks about how he initially got involved with the project. Says Tarsem came after him.

3:50 His first impression when seeing the big practical sets for the film. Talks about how Tarsem juggled all the characters and extravagant costumes, etc.

5:45 His research and prep for the movie. Says he didn’t have to do a lot of research for the character. Talks about the journey of his character and his motivations.

7:40 Talks about research and prep for his roles, and which ones required the most prep time.

8:41 Was he sad he didn’t get to wear one of the helmets? Talks about his costumed.

9:45 Talks about his film Brake that just sold to IFC Films:

“It’s kind of a mixture of a genre movie, but a performance movie too. It was an experiment that I did, we shot it in 11 days. It was a film that I produced with Ryan Ross, my partner in my company; he came up with the ending. It’s a cool movie. There are certain things I’m annoyed about it because it kills me that it could have been even better I think, because in 11 days it’s hard to do everything you wanna do, but I think it’s quite an achievement. It was more of a test on me, I got off on the idea of seeing if I could engage an audience for that long of time without leaving the space I’m in. It’s been a little bit resembled towards Buried, because that was “one man show” in a way, although ours is more like a firecracker on speed; ours is like Die Hard in the trunk of a car…Basically I wake up in a Plexiglas torture chamber box that looks like something out of a Saw movie…and I wake up in there and what we realize in the first 5 minutes is that I’m now in the trunk of a car, so I’m in this plastic box that no matter how hard I bang, I’ve got no shoes, I’m in my jeans and my shirt, I must have been shot in my neck with a needle or something, I wake up in this box, I’m in a car…It’s a terrorist plot, basically car bombs are going off all over Washington and I’m inside one. And so what we realize that I’m in is a liquid nitrogen bomb, basically that they’re just timing and waiting…Basically this guy’s not gonna break, he’s a secret service agent, he has information that they want out of him, he’s not gonna tell them, they’ve kidnapped other agents all over Washington, bombs are going off over Memorial bridge, I’m hearing it, we’re getting clues throughout the whole movie, and then there’s a huge twist in the end. But it’s basically like an 88 minute firecracker. You’re in the car with more for a good hour without leaving.”

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